Who is Nelson Mandela?

Much like the social critique and author Jonothan Kozol, I manage to visit a large numbers of schools throughout the year. The socio-economic scales of the schools I visit range from the most economically impoverished to the “state of the art” experimental. I often find myself comparing my own background to the children at each of these schools.

I will keep the name of the school that I’m writing about anonymous for several reasons that I’m sure you’ll understand. The school had requested I come and spend a few days there as part of an artist residency. I was free to inculcate their students at 45 minute intervals with whatever issues and topics I deemed culturally relevant to their academic growth. When I’m approached by these types of requests I’m usually overjoyed at the prospects but try to remain aware of the time constraints. For many of these children, I realize it may be the one and only time I am in their presence.

On the scheduled day of my first residency at this school, when I arrived, my breath was taken away. The landscaping was immaculate, the surrounding residential area filled with 5,000 – 10,000 square foot homes and scent of fresh hot breakfast wafting from the cafeteria vents. The caravan expensive foreign cars and suvs dropping the children off in front of the school were endless.

I made my way to the office and was escorted by my liaison to the library. A section of the library was partitioned off for my use and all other activities in the library were suspended during my stay so that my sessions would not be disturbed.

After setting up my screen, projector and laptop and re-checking my PowerPoint presentations, I had time to walk the campus before my first session began. I always try to do this to get a feel for the environment. While walking this campus I felt at ease. It seemed more like an environment for a retreat than an actual school. Artwork was everywhere, both the children’s and that of professional artists.

Something that I did notice missing was a cultural diversity in the artwork, images around campus, student body and faculty. The architecture and art of the institution had a definitive eurocentric look and feel.

I had to get back to my workshops before they began so that I could double check my setup. When the first class arrived, they all seemed bright cheerful and eager to learn. They were a well disciplined group, as were the rest throughout the day. They hung on every word. It was an amazing experience. And then something happened in that first session that gave me pause.

When I am instructing on topics such as history or current events, I like to mix music and storytelling with just a little direct narrative. You can probably tell that I’m not a fan of the antiquated Socratic method of instruction. What I’ve learned from the West African craft of Jaliyaa, I, usually, attempt to fuse with Western notions of how we learn. I was in the process of doing this when one of my PowerPoint slides transitioned to an image of Nelson Mandela. Now, typically, I may spend only a few on this slide because of Mandela’s iconic presence in the media. I started speaking about the social and political transitions which have occurred in the world and are continuing to occur. One of the young girls seated in the front row raise her hand and asked, “Who is that?” pointing to the image of Nelson Mandela’s face on the screen. I was awe struck. Like I said earlier, I paused. I looked around the room and saw in the eyes of many of the others that they had the same questions. I asked, “Does anyone know who this man is?”

There was silence. Now one thing I’ve learned over the years in interacting with youth is this: when they know the answer to a question, step out of the way because they are “never” shy about speaking out. When they do not know the answer to a question, the tension in a room can be sliced with a knife.

I had made a critical error in assuming that I could just speak about social and political transitions around the world and employ an image of Nelson Mandela, as sort of an archetype of the topic, without having to address who he is.

The rest of the day went pretty much the same. Almost no one, except for one of the classes that had a very enterprising and inventive teacher who, I later learned, was constantly fighting for diversity within the school, knew who Nelson Mandela was.

Here I was in an institution whose resources rivaled those of many college campuses in the country and the children were not aware of who Nelson Mandela was.

I could go on and on about this experience but I will end with this thought. I was present in the lives of these children for a reason. I was prepared for a reason. My feelings of sadness related to this occurrence remain a marker that motivates me.

This is one of the reasons I do what I do.

“Dooni dooni kononi bè nyagaa da.”